Mary Sanchez: U.S. needs better jobs

More and
more mothers, whether they wear a wedding ring or not, are becoming their
family’s breadwinner.

An
analysis of 2011 U.S. Census data found that 40 percent of households rely on
mom as the primary or sole breadwinner. That’s a massive increase from 1960,
when the figure was a mere 11 percent.

This
trend won’t shock a lot of Americans. They already see it within their own
homes or those of their neighbors. Plenty of mommies are better educated and
better compensated than their husbands, and a growing number of daddies gladly
accept that it is their duty, too, to change diapers and do carpool duty.

But here
is the more sobering tale within the data: Nearly two-thirds of these “sole or
primary” breadwinning women fit that description because they are the only one
working in their household. These are primarily the single mothers. And they
tend to be far less educated, and to be black or Hispanic. Their median
household income was $23,000.

Compare
that to the families studied where it was a married woman who earned more than
her mate. Those homes had a median income of $80,000, well above the national
median for all households of $57,100.

The most
relevant message behind the study is not so much about marriage as about the
growing economic divide in this country. If we understand that, we might just
agree on policies that can address the problem.

Demographically,
these single mothers are a growing and younger percentage of the population.
They are the nation’s future, and it’s not a promising one.

Yet it is
virtually impossible to bring up the topic of single mothers, whether in
Congress or at the dinner table, without inviting a howling lecture.
Everybody’s got a convenient scapegoat to blame, and their certitude of their
own uprightness permits them to do absolutely nothing to change the status quo.
Except to call for more discipline imposed on the already unfortunate.

It’s not
the fact that these women are unmarried with children that drives their
household poverty. It’s their lack of education and too few jobs, including for
the equally under-educated men who are most likely to marry them.

Low-income
families are more likely to divorce. Arguments and stress about money, after
all, are often a contributing factor in divorce.

Those who
wish to promote marriage often miss a truth about poorer mothers. The single
mother without a college degree, and perhaps more so one without a high school
diploma, might be making the best choice for her children by continuing to stay
single. College-educated men aren’t exactly searching low-income areas to find
a suitable spouse. The men who are more readily available to many of these
single mothers — the men they may have already partnered with to father their
children — tend to be of similar if not lower education levels.

And
less-educated men have seen their real wages shrink along with job
opportunities in the last 40 years, as Stephanie Coontz, director of research
and public education at the Council on Contemporary Families, has pointed out.

Coontz
also observes that stable single-parent households are better for children’s
development than domestic situations in constant flux due to their mother’s
relationships, or homes where there is constant parental conflict.

People
who are better-educated and who have firm employment opportunities are more
likely to marry and stay married.

A study
published last year in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that
low-income people value marriage as an institution and share thoughts about
romance similar to people in higher income brackets.

Researchers
at UCLA found that “low-income respondents were more likely than affluent
couples to report that their romantic relationships were negatively affected by
economic and social issues such as money problems, drinking and drug use.” The
low-income respondents actually held more negative views about divorce than
their wealthier counterparts.

So let’s
not pontificate about marriage or make false assumptions about mothers raising
kids who aren’t living with a spouse.

Ordinary
people in this country need to be able to find stable, legal employment that
pays wages that make it possible to raise a family in a safe, nurturing
environment. We have the ability to make that happen through education and
training programs, minimum-wage legislation, trade policy, fiscal policy and
other means.

MARY SANCHEZ writes for The Kansas City Star.
Her column is distributed by Tribune Media Services Inc.

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